peaky blinders imagines + smut.

tommy shelby: the hanging. (part two)

THE HANGING P.2.

The minute you saw him stood in the doorway of your shared home, a combination of emotions ran over your body. You wanted to murder him, make him feel the pain that had been brought onto you during your time in prison but you couldn't. In its place, you watched at him with a blank look which he also had stamped onto his face. You watched him hold the cigarette as you strolled up the magnificent staircase, giving the maids a soft smile as they greeted you back home. It didn't feel like home though, it just felt like another prison. Tommy didn't know what to do, or how to make things better. He had messed up many times in the past but he had never gone this far.

"You know how to keep us hanging, don't you?" you muttered as the sun went down, your choice of words deliberately used so he could see how upset you was with him. The two of you were sat in the drawing room in complete silence. Neither one of you had said anything to each other until those words stumbled out of your mouth. Tommy didn't need any words to know that you was upset with him, the lifeless look in your eyes told him plenty. "Right at the last minute, very Tommy Shelby."

"It wasn't meant to happen then," he answered but you barely knew he was there. You had dreamt about this moment almost every day when you was inside and imagined him sweeping you off your feet, pressing kisses along your cheek as he apologised profusely about what had happened. He hadn't even said sorry, he didn't know how to say the words - he never had done.

"It shouldn't have happened in the first place," you fired back, the alcohol that the maids had provided only powering your rage. Tommy groaned and brushed a hand over his face as he leaned back in the chair. You was right, you both knew it.

"I don't - "

"Why do I still love you?" you interrupted, the words coming out like venom. Whenever you looked at Tommy, all you felt was hatred but deep down, the love threatened to come through. There was no denying your love for him, not really. This was the man that you had been with since before the War, the man you had married only hours before he got on the train to France, the man that you had slaughtered another man for. Tommy looked towards you with wretchedness, he couldn't answer the question. "I hate you, Tommy but I fucking love you as well."

"I love you and I never meant to hurt you, trust me."

"But you did." You stood up and walked over to the counter, pouring yourself another drink. "It was hell in there, Thomas. Want to know what the vilest thing was?"

"No," he answered, not wanting to listen to his wife's troubled times in the cell. He had kept himself awake most nights, thinking about how you was cold and alone with nobody to hold you as you cried into the thin blanket that the jail had provided you.

"When they put that rope around my neck, a part of me was grateful," you told him, wanting Tommy to understand everything, even if he didn't want to know.

Tommy was not an expressive man and usually, he was able to hold things together but the words that you spoke broke his heart into two. It was never meant to have gone that far, not that anyone would have believed him. To think of the love of his life hanging from a rope, because of him, felt worse than anything he had dealt with at France. A single tear slipped from his eyes which you noticed but Tommy swiftly wiped it away and took a deep breath, going back to the same unemotional Tommy that everyone had grown to know. Everyone but you. Nobody understood Tommy like you did and although you wouldn't admit it yet, you could see the hurt and pain in his face. However, you wanted Tommy to suffer and you wasn't going to excuse him that easily

"Why was you grateful?" he asked, although he regretted the question as soon as it left his lips. Tommy didn't want to know anything about those appalling five minutes that you had to go through.

"I thought it was going to be over and that I wouldn't have to live in this nightmare anymore." You downed your drink before placing both hands on the wooden counter - a truckload of feelings rushing over you at once. Memories of the time came back; the terrified look on Polly's face, the prayer that the two of you spoke, the glee on the guard's faces. Then you remembered the man running down the hallway, signalling that the execution had to be stopped and how all of the air in your body returned back to you. You should have smiled in that moment but you didn't.

"I'm sorry," he finally whispered. A brash laughter left your lips as you turned your head to look at him. Tommy looked down at the floor in disgrace as he tried to keep his breathing in check. "I am so fucking sorry."

You strolled over so you was stood behind Tommy's chair and placed one hand on his cheek. Tommy tipped his head to the side to feel your touch. It had been months since his skin had been on yours and he feared that it wouldn't be happening much in the near future. A part of him was afraid that you would leave and never come back, which Tommy wouldn't blame you for. The smell of vanilla filled his nose as he breathed in your scent, he wanted to kiss you, needed to kiss you. With one quick movement, you had been dragged onto his lap. You stared directly at him and continued to caress his cheek. Tommy looked into your eyes and saw the same agony that he had felt whenever he looked in the mirror after France and his heart broke into a million pieces.

"How can I make this better?" he asked, dipping his head into your neck. He made no attempt to press any kisses to your skin but to Tommy, just having you near him was enough at that moment in time.

"Can you go back in time?"

"No," he sighed.

"Then I don't know."